St Augustine continued..

Here are some more photos from my visit to St Augustine on Sunday. First up are a couple pictures from the little walk I took before I went in. These are the steps leading up to the path. The cement path has palm fronds engraved all the way around. They look a little like fossils, pretty neat.

The music was as awesome as the food. As I said before the stage setup was much smaller than last year's, but that didn't affect the enthusiasm of the players at all! That's one thing about the blues bands, along with original songs, you're also likely to hear a few familiar songs as well. At right is JW Gilmore and the Blues Authority. Love the singers purple suit!

The band below (Stormy Weather Blues Band) did an awesome version of "You Didn't Think About That", a song I know from Coco Montoya's Suspicion album. The guitarist was a riot to watch on stage. besides playing the guitar, he took pictures of his band mates, and pretty much was all over the place. The singer reminded me of a cross between Joe Cocker and Jack Nicholson, a la The Shining.

At left is the Regi Blue/Al Stone band, (links go to to their respective, seperate MySpace pages) they were fantastic as well. So all in all, with the food, and the music, and the stupendous weather, it was a great day! After all the food I ate, I decided to drive south just a bit further and hit the beach for a short walk, since I had some time still before I had to get home to the televised Red Sox/Yankees game.

Phew!

Oh. My. Goodness.

Sunday I met a friend of mine at the St Augustine Ampitheater for the Taste of SA, and the Birth of the Blues. Last year it was a 2 day event, this year they've shrunk it down to just one. The weather was beautiful, with hardly a cloud to be seen.

On the way down I stopped at the SA outlets to walk around and pick up a new pair of sport sandals, and a 3 pack of "car jar" air fresheners (Vanilla Lime) from the YCC outlet store.

I pulled into the Ampitheatre a little after noon, and took a walk on a short circular stone path. I didn't venture too far, lest the parking attendants think I was trying to sneak in the back way. There were steps leading up, all but blocked by a large hanging tree branch. After getting a few photos in there, I paid my way in to the Taste. After purchasing some taste tickets I wandered about the booths looking for what I wanted to try first. Immediately the booth with the Pan Seared Mahi Mahi tuna wrapped in bacon caught my attention. The line and the wait never seemed to cease. Adding it to my "must try" list, I moved on. The A1A Ale Works had a busy booth as well, and the Shrimp 'n Grits were quickly purchased, photographed, and inhaled. Delicious!! While I was wolfing that down, my friend called saying she had just pulled in. I met her at the entrance and after purchasing her tickets, we wandered again, with me pointing out where the "good stuff" was. She started out with the sushi, and I headed to the booth with
Caribbean Jack Seared Ahi Tuna with Apple Mango Slaw. It included an edible flower, which I ate, but it was pretty tasteless. :)

Other items I had were the Maryland style Crab Cakes with a mustard sauce, Fried Custard, Garlic Fries, Mini Chocolate Torte, The Mahi Mahi wrapped in bacon mentioned above. Oh and 2 Starbucks Iced coffees, and a small pice of Orange Chocolate fudge to go. The only disappointment was the Pineapple Shrimp Fried Rice, which was very bland.

In between dishes we sat under the tent and watched the bands and chatted.

More pictures to follow!

Scrap Your Day 01

I randomly chose the August prompt from Shimelle's free online "Scrap Your Day" challenge/project she did last year. Jeanne and I decided to do it together this year, and alternate choosing months, as well. She already had a system that works for her down, and I'll be learning what works and what doesn't as I go along.

This months theme was "in the details", and I probably could have done better, but I had fun and that's what counts! :) It's a challenge after all, right?

I could tell when I got up, that it was going to be a beautiful day!The sun was shining, and some high fluffy clouds.

Dinner last night was from a tasty recipe I found in one of the Taste of Home magazines. I love that they are fast, and always use easy to find ingredients.

This one has spiral pasta, diced chicken breast, diced tomatoes, black olives and some spices. It also called for sour cream, but had none, and it was still tasty. I have made it properly before, so knew it was one ingredient I could skip.

Most of the day was spent at the St John's Town Center browsing at Barnes & noble, and watching the free music in the small park there. There are ducks, koi, and lots of turtles in the pond there as well, so plenty to capture my attention.

They had an art show going on also, so I couldn't get too picture happy there, but there were some great drawings and paintings. very creative stuff!

I even managed to find my new bathing suit. hopefully this one lasts more than a year, since I may go swimming 2-3 times a year at the most.

Today it's off to St Augustine for the annual Taste of St Augustine, and Birth of the Blues festival at the Ampitheatre. I've even skipped breakfast so I can properly stuff myself later on. Carribean Jack Seared Ahi Tuna with Apple Mango Slaw anyone?? YUM-O!

Remember to go here to see some of Jeanne's pics from her day! I wonder what month she'll pick for us next!!

Lazy Sunday

On Saturday I had planned to go to the beach for Sunrise Service, but on Sunday morning that was not happening. I woke up, fed the cat and promptly went right back to bed. Ah, well. I finally got up about 8:30-ish, took my shower and proceeded to have a semi-lazy day.

I made cinnamon rolls, and coffee, then got on the computer. I always hit the Postsecret blog first on Sundays, then off to check out some crafty blogs.

Eventually Jeanne & I connect and decide to scrap. It took me a little while to decide what layouts to do, but I decided on one for the election (loosely), and one on the walk through Cradle Creek Preserve.

The photos on the right half of the page were from the rally held at Metro Park back in September.

~details: cardstock: The Paper Company, "memorable" stamp: Collage Press office policy, "imagine" & "dream" rub-ons: Junkitz, "change you can believe in" stamps: Scrappy Cat.

For the Cradle Creek layout, I wanted simple, and used a sketch I found in the newest, and sadly last issue of Simple Scrapbooks.

There are so many great places here to hike and watch birds, or other small creatures, that I just need to get out there and find them.

~details: Cardstock: Bazzill, Flowers: Prima, Letter stickers & brads: unknown, journaling font: Lucida Handwriting.

Have a great week and don't forget to go visit Jeanne's blog and see what she created!

Jax Beach & Springing The Blues

Between Friday evening and most of Saturday I spent about 10 hours at the beach listening to some great music, and eating some good BBQ. They had 2 stages, going and I found myself at the less crowded, but just as good, smaller stage. I listened to the Yankee Slickers for most of their set, and moved about between set-ups.

It wasn't as windy as the last time I was out, so I ended up on the pier again also. Lots of bluefish and some white being caught. From what I heard, there was a small shark sighting. The dolphins made a quick pass also.



This guy was hanging out on the pier for quite some time. I bet he was probably waiting for someone to toss him some fish.
I got a little sunburn, even with at least 2 applications of sunscreen, but it was a great couple of days at the beach.

Jacksonville Parks

After working several hours today to finish up a project at work I decided to take a ride to a local park/trail that I read about on this site. I chose the Cradle Creek Preserve to check out, will probably visit more of the other parks eventually.

I stopped at Dunkin's for an iced coffee, and headed a few miles down the road.

As soon as I got out of my car and saw the boardwalks I couldn't wait to see what was out there!

I mostly saw lizards and lots of large bird nests. I wish I had a better zoom, but I think this one may be an osprey. Heard some woodpeckers as well, but didn't/couldn't see them. Lots of elusive butterflies as well.

This little lizard was pretty neat. The photo is actually upside down, since that was the only angle I could get him at. I was hanging over the railing as it was. :)

Can you see the lizard in this photo?? He wasn't into getting his picture taken, and I took that as a personal challenge. Managed to get a couple of him, but he kept scurrying under the leaves, and boy, did he blend perfectly!

Also saw lots of flowers, spanish moss, and various palms.

Managed to get a shot of myself sitting on a bench at the end of one of the trails. I only saw one couple walking around, other than that I pretty much had the trails to myself.

Windy Weekends..

I was able to scrap part of my saturday events from the Seafood festival, but not all of it. It was so windy, I have no idea what made me want to walk out onto the very long, even windier out over the ocean pier. May have been the attractive price of only a dollar. A superb bargain, considering I had just paid $13 for some fried shrimp and a lemonade. Ah well, not like the seafood fest is every weekend.

Here is my layout from the Shuttle Discovery launch at the beach. I printed out the patch from the internet.

~details: Cardstock: Bazill, "blastoff" letters: K & Company, Discover, believe, Imagine rubons: Junkitz, imagine rubon(top left): Swatch book, calendar stamp: Collage Press, Journaling stamp: Autumn Leaves.

That last pic that looks like a cloud is actually the leftover gas from takeoff, it was very bright! The pic on the left with "discover" on it is the rocket boosters dropping off.



As I mentioned earlier, while I was at the seafood fest, I decided to take a stroll on the pier. It was actually pretty neat, spots for people to clean their fish and some benches. I will definitely have to take the walk again, on a much less windy day of course!

~details: cardstock: Bazill, "@" stamp: Fiskars, "the pier" stamps: Autumn Leaves (more on these later), Pointing hand stamp: Melissa Francis.

So, those new Autumn Leaves stamps are pretty cool. they are the layering ones, and so an endless amount of possiblilities for color choices. I'll have lots of fun with those over the holidays!

So, that was my weekend! I still want to scrap the actual seafood fest, and then at the beginning of April, there's the Springing the Blues fest, with more food, music and fun to be had. That one goes on for 3 days.

While I was trying to find less windy places to hang out during the fest, I went to a small park near where I watched the Shuttle. There's a bronze statue there called "Sea Express". It depicts a boy riding on the back of a dolphin. I took several pics of it in different lighting, so not sure which one to use on my layout. I'm sure one of them will be fine.

That's all I've got here. As always it was a very productive scrappy day. Don't forget to visit Jeanne to see all the cool stuff she made!

Have a great week!

**only 62 days til my vacation, and 64 til I get my new tattoo!! w00t!!!

My, My...

I had a pretty quiet week for the most part, and really didn't go anywhere until last night. I ended up at the beach with probably a couple thousand other folks all to watch the Space Shuttle Discovery take off. I'd never gone to watch that before, and even though I'm quite a ways north of Cape Canaveral, you could see plenty, it was very cool!

As usual Jeanne & I had a scrappy session going on. It wasn't as long as some of them, but still fun & productive as always!

I got 2 layouts done, both super simple. First one is for my baby girl Sadie. Ok, so she's a dog. I love this pic i took of her on my last vacation home, she was so happy to see me, and I was very happy to see her as well!

~details: PP: American Crafts, date stamp: Collage press "office Policy", "sadie" bone and paw stamps: Studio G, ink: stampcraft and ColorBox.

Next one is a few favorite beach pics from january and february. I used sketch 12 from Inspired blueprints for this one, and since I didn't cut the contrasting blocks to exactly 6x6, I had to finagle it to get the pics to line up right. It's still not quite lined up, but I like the way it came out.

~details: background papers: Colorbok "jewel", PP used for button in center: American Crafts, Thread: DMC, Rub-on flowers: American Crafts, Date stamp: Collage Press.

So, there you have it! I can't wait to get prints made of the shuttle launch to scrap that. How am I ever going to fit 50 pics on a page?? lol

As always, go here to see what Jeanne made!

Oh, Scrappy day!

Today was a busy, but good day. I came home to not one, but TWO packages in my mailbox! I ordered a few items at Addicted to Scrapbooking, and a paperback from the paperback swap site. I've seen this author's books at the library, and since I'm so slow at getting into reading I didn't want to borrow it and not have it done, or need to renew half a dozen times. His name is Jasper Fforde, and the books are a sci-fi/mystery mix. It would figure that Book 2 arrives before book 1, too. Ah, well.

The scrappy goodies are Creative Cafe Travel set on the right, and on the left is Dear Diary from Collage Press. Both very cool looking!

For our usual sunday scrap session Jeanne and I both got quite a bit done. I hit a roadblock later on, but she came thru with a lift idea, that I'm still playing with.

For the ones I did finish, I'm quite happy with those! In 2006, the company I work for decided to move us from TX to Jax, and I really wish I was able to get more pics of the very long drive out, but due to traveling with others (all in our own vehicles), I managed just a few photos. The photo of the hotel they put us up in I took this past week, it hasn't changed. Sadly, the Dunkin' Donuts that was here is now gone. All is not lost, though; they've put Dunkin's in the local Hess stations! hehe.

For my second Layout, I did a 2 pager for the JDRF walk on saturday. I had so many cool pics, that I couldn't decide how to put that many on there without looking too cluttered. I remember Shimelle had a Scrap your Day challenge similar, and I used that idea, worked just perfect!

Working on a LO (or 2) for the pups back home, and have more downtown jax photos to scrap from the walk, as well. So, a very productive scrappy day! As always, go here to see what Jeanne made!

JDRF walk..

Today was the Juvenile Diabetes walk here in Jacksonville held at Metro Park. Our company had over 100 registered walkers. The weather was beautiful at almost 80 deg. F and sunny, glad I brought along the sunscreen.

I'll be scrapping tomorrow, as I've already ordered those prints from walgreens. I love those 50 prints for $5 deals!

The 3 mile walk started on the waterfront, and continued down Gator Bowl Dr, onto Bay St, towards s. Pearl St, crossing water St, and then back down to Gator Bowl Dr. Along the way we passed all the cool places I see when driving thru and can't take pics. So I used this opportunity to get some shots of Jacksonville landmarks. I'l show more pictures monday on the layouts I make tomorrow.

Starting top left: juggler, reflection in the Modis building, the balloon arch that started/ended the walk, some girls that were very happy to have finished the walk. (Glad I had the camera up then, LOL), The Maxwell House factory (oh, the smell of the coffee!!), the Gator statue in Metro Park, and in the center is the Jacksonville Landing. A mall with a very noticable orange roof.

More to come....

Stormy Sunday Scrapping

Sunday began with some whipping winds and rain. There was a large lock of finches flitting about in the tree outside my window. The cat really enjoyed that!
At the most all I had to do was head out to Walgreens to pick up my prints, and mail a couple things out. I was back home by 8am, and ready to eat and get started thinking about what to scrap for the day. I had a couple ideas, and one led to another and then another, til I had a good 5-6 plans for pages. 3 of those ideas will have to wait, and 2 are completed. Yeah, I'm kinda slow, not to mention I kept getting sucked into surfing online. One more LO is in progress. My "HOME." album is on hiatus until I go home to get some new shots of things that aren't already in there.

At first I was just going to do a general Red Sox LO, and when I started looking thru the photos I had, I noticed how all of Jason's pics were from behind...how odd! ;) That one was a no-brainer..

~Details: Cardstock: Best Occasions, "B": printed off the net, Markers from Zig, "Jason" rubon's from Monograms set, "Varitek": Edwardian Script ITC font, chippy button from Love Elsie, thread from DMC.

So, eventually I will do a Red Sox LO, and a Johnny Damon one, since I met him at the local mall back home before the 2004 season started.

Next layout is one focusing on the Sand dollar I found in St. Augustine last week. Even tho I'm not a religious person, I included the legend that goes with it. I printed the photo out on cardstock, and kept the colors simple.

~details: Cardstock: The Paper Company, Font: Monotype Corsiva, "memories like this" rubons: Swatch book, "treasure" sticker: Adornit, Chipboard border: K & Co.

So there you have it! A fantastic day of scrapping and no better way to spend a crappy weather day than inside, warm & cozy, scrapping with my bestest friend! Yes, the sun did eventually come out, but the winds remained!

As always head over to Jeanne's place, and see what she made on our scrappy day!

Sunday Morning Beach Walk

This morning, I woke early, and decided that St. Augustine would be a nice ride. I forgot my phone, so I couldn't let a certain person know I wasn't going to be home til later. oops! It was still dark when I left, and the Dunkin Donuts is a little out of my way. I made the trip anyway, since I had a gift card to use. I got a coffee & a jelly donut. Armed with my sugary breakfast, I made my way down the A1A. It started getting a little lighter, and I knew I wouldn't make the beach for sunrise. As I passed all of the beach-front houses (in Ponte Vedra, they can hardly be called "cottages") I would glance at the horizon to see how the sunrise was looking. I finally found an open parking lot on the side of the road and quickly parked to grab a couple shots before continuing down the coast. Once I got to the old city I sat on a bench near the parking garage, and ate my breakfast, then wandered the mostly empty city. As it was so early, not much was open, but that was ok. I didn't mind the quiet. I got done there after an hour or so of getting some shots, and wandering. Most of the people I saw were heading into church. Here is a little color for you northerners. Hoping spring comes quickly! Like before my vacation. LOL

When I left there my next stop was the St. Augustine Beach, where the Pier was. I was looking for sharks teeth, but instead found this:

Yes, it's *that* small!! I've never, ever found a whole sand dollar before, I only see bits and pieces of them. I took a photo before even picking it up, and then another to show how tiny it is. It's now sitting in bleach to get out that ocean-y smell, and whiten it a little, not to mention kill anything in it that may still be alive. ;)

After that, I pretty much decided that my day was complete, so left the beach and got a couple more random shots on my way back to my car.

I remember going to the Sunset Grille about 20 years ago when I came down here to visit my aunt, we'd always spend a weekend in St Augustine. Alas, the hotel we stayed in (was called the surf and turf inn, if I remember correctly) is no longer there, but the Grille is! I remember they had named much of the food after Jimmy Buffet songs, like a cheeseburger in Paradise, etc..

It's right down the street from Cafe 11, which seems to have a popular sunday brunch as the parking lot was packed. They have some great concerts there as well.

I can't believe..

..it's almost March already! It seems like the year is flying by so fast. I worked a half day today, then hit up the St John's Town Center. Found an empty table in B&N and sat for a couple of hours reading magazines and enjoying a frap, but nothing I wanted to buy. I did manage to snag a few photos there, since the segway riding security was out in full force.

Here's my favorite store:

And here I am reflected in a lid at Williams-Sonoma: They were so shiny!

I did have a coupon for Michael's craft store, so I picked up a few of those little dollar stamp sets from Studio G that I love so much. I'm slowly working my way through the whole alphabet. I started with my and my family's initials, and then the more common letters. I keep a list of the ones I have in my wallet so I don't accidentally buy any duplicates.

I have 3 whole months to go before my vacation, and I'm already wanting to start packing..is that sad? I wish I made it longer, but I like one short one, where I can relax more (never happens) and then the September one where I pretty much never stop moving. Jeanne & I go to Boston and hang out in 'Hamp (Bishops!) and Me & my mom usually go up north (vermont or New hampshire) for a day. For the last couple years I've missed out on the Big E as well, so this year I planned it right!